Page 70 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

And those same men had wanted James to believe that Owen had mistreated his sister, making Owen vulnerable to James’s retaliations, so that a union between their clans would never happen again. Marjorie had been nabbed. She’d been sacrificed so that the enemy could corner Owen…

Sometimes the queen must be sacrificed so the enemy can corner the king. A feint to send the opponent down the wrong path. And then a strike. She’d done so a hundred times while playing chess. Marjorie had been nothing more than a means to lure Owen into a trap.

By whom?

Her finger twirled her locket and talon together. Marjorie’s words weren’t random anymore. She’d given Brighde clues, too, in the only way her strength had allowed. Chiefly, that James would never understand. Because even Margie had known what was at stake, and that their brother, in his fury, wouldn’t hear reason.

But he was listening now. Anxiousness assaulting her, she scrambled to gather up her parchments and notes. Returned the histories and documents to the shelf. She had to tell James what she’d learned and pray that Tormund would wish to see her again, and swept down the stairs, for the sun had moved in the sky from morning to afternoon and it was at least an hour’s ride back to Kilravock.

She passed the lad and abbot engrossed in their game, though the boy had put himself at a disadvantage.

She stalled, glanced over his shoulder, then reached around him and slipped his pawn up beside the abbot’s, pinning the abbot’s token. She plucked it off the board for the lad and pointed. “Now do ye see?”

His blue eyes widened as she pointed. “I do, my lady. My king can escape there!”

Giggling, she shielded her mouth from the abbot who shared a smile with her, and whispered loudly enough to be heard. “Nay tell the abbot, though.”

The boy’s face split into a grin, revealing a missing tooth…and a curious divot aside his mouth. So familiar. The obsidian stone in the hilt of his dagger, surrounded by flecks of gold…

“I cannae wait to tell my da when he visits again. I cannae wait to trounce him myself on the verra board he brought…” the laddie added as she swept out of the boc-hord, when her boots ground to a halt, skin tingling with premonition.

His da. The man who’d traded the Tafl game.

She turned and stared at the lad from the doorway as an ache twisted within her. The abbot was watching her impassively. Tormund had a…child?

“What is yer name, lad?” she croaked.

The bairn turned over his shoulder. Those bright blue eyes… God above, she dare not think what— “Owen, my lady.”

Owen. Named after Tormund’s brother? She shook her head to herself, swallowing hard as the seconds passed and a truth she didn’t dare believe pricked her thoughts.

“Eh, how old are ye, Master Owen?”

But she already knew. The abbot was still staring at her. Hard. As if willing her to put clues together, clues she didn’t dare put together, as betrayal cut deeper and deeper with every passing moment.

“I have seven years, my lady.”

Nay, it was too much of a coincidence. The floor wavered. She gripped the doorframe. Those blue eyes were MacDonald eyes. That divot was a MacLeod expression, for all those men looked similar. Goraidh. Tormund’s secret wasn’t that there’d been a child born and lost. His secret was that the bairn hadn’t been lost at all. Except to history.

Chapter Twenty

Hurt. Anger. Confusion.

They swirled in a potent elixir that did nothing but perplex her further as Sunshine thundered between hills, over burns, through vales on the route back to Kilravock. The wind in her face dried old tears as new ones fell unchecked, as old grief surged anew. She wasn’t wrong about the wee laddie. Deep in her gut, she knew the truth, that this lad, the exact age of the fated babe with Marjorie’s stunning blue eyes, was in sooth, Goraidh. The reason Tormund was reluctant to ever speak of what lay in Inverness. The reason he tithed so generously when reaves had cost him much, was to pay for the lad’s anonymity, protection, tutelage, and the Reverend Father’s confidence, who’d been sworn to secrecy.

And the lad had referred to Tormund as his da. He’d called himself Owen. Did he even know his true past and history? Or did he think Tormund his sire, and his namesake his uncle? What had happened? Why did Tormund fear the lad’s discovery now, if he was supposedly deceased? For she’d sensed Tormund’s fear from the moment she’d recognized him at the horse race, masked as vengeance and intimidation.

God, the questions wouldn’t cease, compounding in sickening waves, so that by the time she reached Kilravock, she was no longer able to contain the frustration brimming within her. Was no longer willing to let Tormund run from her and shut her out. At the least, he should have told her he had a son in the event she was dreadfully wrong and Tormund truly was the lad’s blood sire. At most, he should have told her if the lad was, in sooth, her nephew. She’d confessed how much she’d wished Marjorie could have had a child. Tormund had simply sat there on that boat, silent and stern-faced while the very child she’d prayed so fervently for was here, alive and well, denied her and James all these years. The bairn might have helped James cope, for she knew that until he’d met Aileana, he’d still locked himself away, imbibing heavily, or struck mercilessly in the training yard, punishing himself, grieving.

She swiped at her tears and trotted Sunshine across the contest fields now shorn of their grain, but saw no sign of Tormund. Toward the castle swarming with celebrants making their final purchases. Past feats of brawn underway as people cheered and vendors sold their wares, she searched for yellow tartan, hoping that he competed for more coin for his people, and still saw none. She dashed through the faire, scouring the tavern, lively as people made merry, struck deals, bought livestock, and made handfasts.

No sign of Tormund or his men.

No yellow tartan in sight.

She navigated through the throngs until she reached the remote MacLeod campsite, apart from the other clans. Only two of Tormund’s men, one standing watch beside his cart of harvest grains, bundled and ready to pass out to his folk along his journey home, the other with the reins of his mount in hand as if having just ridden up on an errand.

“My lady.” The sentry shoved off the cart where he’d slouched, concern and surprise to see her etched in his face.